


Sleep

by rubycrowned



Category: 1D - Fandom, One Direction, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, M/M, omg I'm so sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-17
Updated: 2012-06-17
Packaged: 2017-11-07 22:22:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/436085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubycrowned/pseuds/rubycrowned
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And I miss you, and I wish you were here</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> I am so sorry for this. This is what happens when you have a shitty emotional night and decide to pour that into fic. Unbeta'd so try to forgive any mistakes (let me know if there's any major ones and I'll edit). Sorry. That's it, really. 1300 words of pain. Enjoy.

Louis scrunches his face and buries it deeper into his pillow. The sun had begun to stream directly into his still-closed eyes; someone had forgotten to close the curtains again last night. He flings an arm and leg in the general direction of Harry’s side of the bed, grumbling almost incoherently into the pillow.

“Haz. Oi, Harry. Move your lazy ass and let a man get some shut eye, yeah?”

His searching limbs meet the cold touch of an empty bed.

***

It’s dark, and Louis thinks it’s raining, but he’s not sure; the wetness only seems to be on his face, running cold in drips onto his shirt. He shivers in the night chill, calling out to Harry up ahead, only a shadow in the blue-black.

“Harry. Harry, wait for me!”

Louis’ voice is hoarse and choked; not nearly as loud as he had hoped.

The silhouette moves further away from him and Louis reaches an arm after him.

His voice is a whisper.

“Don’t leave me here alone.”

Please.

***

Gentle hands rub circles against Louis’ back; familiar touches against his spine, curved with the rest of his body into a tiny ball. If he can make himself small enough, maybe he could just disappear altogether.

Never does he feel the touch he wants, needs most.

Louis sees him in the background, out of the corner of his eye, hazy and indistinct. His head shakes slowly, curls bouncing disapprovingly as Louis refuses Liam’s entreaties to eat, just a little bit, Lou; watches silently as Zayn replaces the untouched mug of tea from the bedside table; folds his arms against his chest when Niall has to leave the room after an hour of gently kneading Louis’ hands between his own, while tears streamed quietly down the blonde boy’s reddened cheeks.

Louis wants to tell him to stop. Stop looking so unhappy with him; bring back the smile which Louis wants to remember, to trace against red lips with fingers, then the tip of a tongue, then retain its’ impression as lips meld together.

Louis wants to tell him to come close, to hold onto Louis as tight as he can, until he can’t breathe. Because he feels like he’s breaking, broken, apart. And he’s the only one who can keep him together.

Because maybe not breathing would be easier than this.

Because Louis needs to see him, not this out-of-focus mirage, but him.

Because every time Louis tries, Harry disappears.

Harry’s gone.

***

Louis didn’t have time to scream.

Not before.

Not soon enough to do any good.

Now he can’t remember how to stop.

***

Waking is still the best time.

Those few moments when everything is still fuzzy and warm and Louis can feel the faint tickle of air as Harry exhales slow breaths onto his chest, the comfortable weight of his arm thrown around Louis’ waist in sleep.

Or he wakes from a nightmare, cold sweat sticking the sheets to his torso, heart pounding painfully against his ribs; but momentarily relieved as he hears the tap running in the bathroom, Harry already up and getting him a glass of water to calm him.

Until.

Until Louis realises that the air is cold, not warm, and is from the window cracked open. That the weight is from the extra blankets one of the boys must have thrown over him at some point, pushed low during the night.

Until Louis realises that the nightmare was a memory played on repeat onto his closed lids. That it is not Harry pushing a glass of water into his shaking hands and gently stroking the strands of matted hair from his forehead; whispering sleepy nonsense in his ears to try and quieten the hoarse yelling which Louis dimly realises is exiting from his own cracked lips.

And that’s when it becomes the worst time.

***

Zayn convinces him to shower every now and then.

It is one thing which Louis will agree to, and somewhere something twitches within him each time his friend exhales a sigh of relief, that Louis is doing such a small action. He’s pretty sure it’s guilt, but guilt seems to be overriding everything but the suffocating grief Louis feels these days, so it’s hard to distinguish the different aspects of it.

He mostly stands under the hot spray, scrubbing franticly at the blood which seems to have seeped beneath Louis’ skin, staining his bones, his soul.

The pressure of the shower is hard enough to distract Louis a little, loud enough against the shower walls that the screams, the sirens are muted slightly; cotton wool packing his ears as water thuds into Louis’ naked body, still shivering under the scalding heat.

Then he returns to bed, swallowing another of the pills Liam had gotten him from some doctor management had sent them.

Louis doesn’t care where they came from.

He just wants to sleep.

***

“Where are you?”

Louis spins in circles as he tries to move through the oppressive black.

“Louis?”

“Harry. Where are you?”

Nothing but silence penetrates the darkness.

“Harry I’m scared. You said you wouldn’t leave.”

Louis feels himself slipping, falling, fallen.

“I need you.”

***

He puts on clean clothes.

A white shirt. A jacket. A tie.

He combs his hair.

Shoes.

He can’t speak. Can’t look at the casket in front of him. Can’t listen to people who knew him, loved him – but didn’t know him, love him like Louis did – speak of Harry in the past tense.

Was not is.

He can’t do anything except focus on breathing in, out. Focus on not screaming at Harry’s lifeless eyes in front of him. Focus on counting the imperfections of the hardwood floor beneath his polished dress shoes, tight around his toes.

Except then they’re at the cemetery, and everyone is crying, and Louis never really stopped, but now they are lowering this box into the ground and people are tossing flowers and dirt in after it and Harry is in that box and Harry is going to be separated from him by six feet of damp cold earth and

“STOP”

And Louis feels tenderly grasping hands at his shoulders, wrists, waist; but there is still a set missing, will always be a set missing now.

“Please.” His voice is barely more than a whisper now, one outburst more than he can manage.

“Please, Harry, I need you. I love you and I need you and I don’t know how to be here without you.”

Six hands tighten their grip and Louis can’t see anymore; can’t see what remains of the person he loves most disappearing from sight forever.

“I miss you.”

Louis closes his eyes and for once, there is no horror to meet him in the black.

***

The sunlight streams in, disturbing Louis, until it is blocked by shadow.

“Go back to sleep, Lou.”

Louis glances blearily towards the familiar husky voice. Soft rays of light, filtering through the now-closed curtains, still manage to light up the beloved features.

“It’s ok, Boo.”

There is water in one of his hands, pills on the nightstand. Louis’ head pounds, and another packet is pressed into his free hand.

“I’m right here with you, love. Just sleep.”

All he wants is to sleep.

***

Harry never saw it coming.

Louis did.

Never saw the vehicle which hit him.

Louis did.

Never heard the desperate pleas coming from his best friend, boyfriend, soul mate, begging him to wake up, stay with me, don’t go.

Louis did.

Never watched tears mingle with blood pooling beneath a too-still body.

Louis did.

Never envied the peace of death.

Louis did.

**Author's Note:**

> Please don't hurt me...


End file.
